Repressed (Deadly Secrets) by Elisabeth Naughton Read Free Book Online Page B

at the table, his shaggy light-brown hair falling over his eyes.
    “Then you have nothing to worry about. Tell me about the key.”
    “I don’t know anything about a key. I don’t know anything about the break-in in Ms. Parker’s room either. I like her. I wouldn’t do nothin’ to cause her trouble.”
    Ethan wanted to stay mad, but he knew he needed to remain professional. According to Thomas’s case file, the boy wasn’t aggressive. The few instances of assault on his record had been provoked. Judge Wilson believed he’d acted in self-defense. Was Thomas prone to bad choices? Sure. Did he come from a shitty family? You bet. He’d been orphaned as an infant after his mother was killed. His file didn’t give a lot of details, but it was clear there was no father figure in play. Two years ago, the aunt who’d raised him had died in a car accident, and he’d bounced from foster home to foster home before Judge Wilson had tracked down his grandmother in Hidden Falls. Did any of that make him violent, though? Only if Ethan had missed something big.
    He pulled out a chair and sat. “Tell me about Ms. Parker.”
    Thomas picked at a spot on the table. His nails were chewed down to the quick, and he was too thin. Thinner than he’d been only a few weeks ago when Ethan had met him in Portland. Ethan made a mental note to have children’s services take another look at his grandmother’s home. “She’s okay.”
    “You didn’t get upset that she flunked you on a test a few days ago?”
    Thomas glanced up. “How’d you know about that?”
    “I know everything, Thomas. Don’t try to snow me.”
    The kid lifted a shoulder and dropped it. His gaze slid back to the table. “Didn’t care. Didn’t even try.”
    Full of attitude, defiant, and a loner. But that didn’t necessarily mean he was guilty. It didn’t mean he was innocent either. “I can only help you if you’re honest with me. That police chief? Principal Burke? They’re ready to pin this on you whether you did it or not. The judge gave you a freebie last time by only assigning you to counseling. The next time you get charged, you and I both know you’ll be looking at probation, if not detention. You’ve got a history with the law. You’re new around here. Nobody’s going to think twice if you take the fall.”
    “I didn’t do it!” Thomas folded his arms protectively across his middle. “Go on. Don’t believe me. You’re like all the rest.”
    Ethan studied Thomas’s tense face, the eyes shimmering with tears the kid wouldn’t let fall. If he were inclined to go with his gut, he’d say the teen was telling the truth. But he’d learned over the years that his gut was sometimes wrong. And he definitely didn’t trust it in this town.
    “Then let’s start at the beginning. Tell me everything you did today, where you went after school, and who the hell you could have possibly pissed off. Because if you’re telling the truth, then that means someone’s trying to frame you. And I’m possibly the last friend you’ve got, kid.”

    The doorbell rang later that evening, sending Sam’s nerves right through the roof all over again.
    She pulled the door open and looked into Will’s drawn face. “Well?”
    “Adler didn’t admit to anything.” Will strolled into her house, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and turned to face her in the entryway of her mother’s old house. “No surprise there.”
    Sam closed the door behind him. From his spot by the fireplace in the living room, Grimly groaned and rolled to his side. “Do you really think he did it?”
    She was still struggling with the idea that Thomas could be involved in any of this. He’d never once acted hostile toward her. But what did she really know about him? Not a lot. Just that he was a bright, quiet teen with a questionable past who, in some ways, reminded her of her brother.
    “I don’t know,” Will said with a shrug. “Any dumbass can break into a locker